


Twenty Questions > I Spy Every Day of the Week

by florahart



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Remix, boys using their language, locked in trope, low-key hurt-comfort, road trip games, stuck in an elevator, unexpected circus education
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-11 01:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20537924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: Everything exploded early, and Phil and Clint are stuck in an elevator under a bunch of rubble.  Clint wants to play I Spy in the dark -- wait, that sounds dirty.  Clint suggests games one might play on a long road trip, or, you know, in a confined and unlit space, to while away the time while they wait in the dark.





	Twenty Questions > I Spy Every Day of the Week

**Author's Note:**

  * For [out_there](https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Still Better than I Spy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1724405) by [out_there](https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there). 

> This is a remix. A LOT of the dialogue is lifted from the original text; it's pretty much word for word (the dialogue, not the surrounding action/point of view) for the first ~third or so, then a bunch that's not, then a mix toward the end. Thus, if you have previously read the original, it will feel familiar to you, because it's supposed to and this is one of the ways a remix can work. The changes I made include flipping the point of view and extending the primary scene for quite a bit longer. ...And injuring one of them so the other could comfort, because this is how I roll.

The timer in Phil’s head says they have nearly fifty seconds left when the first charge goes off, and goddammit. He says a _lot_ of bad words, all silently inside his head because even though it’s just Clint with him, he has this unexplainable and certainly inexpressible need to project confidence so Clint doesn’t get scared.

This is fucking stupid, because Clint is not only a grown-ass adult who can take very good care of himself, with extreme prejudice when needed, but is also a creative problem-solver whose ideas he should start getting _yesterday_. But there it is, he needs to direct the moment without conveying any kind of panic. 

So he hears the boom, formulates a plan, and drags Clint by grabbing the shoulder of his tac vest into the elevator, whose door is closing as they move. They land in a somewhat undignified pile on the floor and take a second to breathe, then right themselves smoothly like the well-oiled team they are.

The second boom jolts the box, though, and there’s a godawful scrape and squeal that says it’s been knocked askew in the shaft. Phil can feel it in the floor; it’s not even that far from true, just a few degrees lift of the northwest corner, a few of drop in the southeast, a slight twist within the square the box runs in -- but it’s clearly enough. The opposing corners are caught, the engine still trying valiantly to move them, and that’s …a problem, actually. He’s actually relieved when power finally cuts out on the fifth _boom_ of their explosives, because a straining elevator motor might, depending on age, tend to catch on fire and things that will _not_ make his day complete include being trapped in a chimney that’s on fire, in a metal box. 

Finally, after everything goes quiet and nothing is shaking any more, Clint says, “We’ve been in worse situations.”

Phil wonders if he had looked worried, before the lights kicked it. If that’s why Clint is saying words of reassurance. He _is_ worried, obviously; they had no opportunity to report on, well, anything after the shit hit the fan, and clearly something was deeply wrong with the charges in their bags because they not only detonated early; they detonated _wrong_ly. The elevator shaft, and in fact everything on this side of the building, should have stayed standing.

He likes the concept that the detonators were fucked a lot better than the other option, which is that someone else brought the building down while they were inside, because 1. That would be a failure of intel and that is never good, and 2. That would mean someone else was at least not interested in their well-being, if not actively working to murder them to full extinction. 

But, he needs to answer Clint. “You’re sure about that?”

Clint snorts. “It’s not Budapest.”

That’s fair, although, “You can’t compare every mission to Budapest.”

Clint has a flashlight out, just enough they don’t have to pay extra attention to locate each other in the pitch black. Phil notices the dust filtering down in the thin beam and wonders if it’s dust they stirred into the space as they landed, or dust coming in from somewhere. If it’s the latter, then the good news is they will run out of air more slowly; the bad news is, if there are chemical toxins, they’re totally fucked. Clint says, “Until one goes worse than that, Budapest is the ten on my FUBARed-Mission scale.”

Phil quirks his lower lip a little, not a grin or a purse of the lips so much as a facial shrug. “Okay. It’s not Budapest.”

He’s glad about that, though; Budapest was a clusterfuck that should have killed each of them a couple of times over, and if he never again has to hold Clint’s guts together with his hands _while shooting people and trying to manage arranging exfil from an unplanned location_, it will be too soon.

Clint nods. “Natasha will get us out.”

Phil nods back. Natasha will, probably, get them out, although she can’t control for fire, toxins, or fucked up detonators.

Actually, he tries to count back, to work out whether they all went off. If there is another party, if there are undetonated explosives, he can’t hope Natasha tries to reach them. Better she survive than none of them.

Clint grins at him, and Phil, because he really can’t do anything else right now, memorizes this iteration, this instance of Clint’s smartass grin. “In the meantime, we can play I Spy.”

Phil drops any hint of a grin he might by any reckoning be offering. He says nothing, but obviously, _obviously_, he is not playing I Spy in about twelve lumens against an unnatural human who can actually see detail in that environment. Clint knows exactly what’s going on in his head, of course, and puts up his hands, a bare shadow in the dark as far as Phil is concerned, and says, “Or not. Feel free to suggest something else.”

"How about _nothing_. Is silence an option?" 

“You’d get bored.”

Phil suppresses a chuckle at that, because Clint knows him as well as he knows Clint, and he’s absolutely right, but he says, “I’m willing to take that risk.”

“I’m not. I remember what happened the last time you got bored.” Clint waits for Phil to offer up an eyebrow, like he knows Phil is going to question him, and adds, “Debrecen.”

All right, he definitely has a point. Debrecen was the proof that Hungary and Strike Team Delta do not get along. Before Debrecen, Budapest might have been an anomaly, but after? They really don’t do Hungary. Phil nods. “Right.” Clint draws in a breath like he’s about to suggest something else, and Phil adds, “and before you suggest Truth or Dare, please note that I am armed.”

“We’re stuck in a 6 by 6 metal box,” Clint points out. “That limits the possible dares.”

“It certainly shows the limits of your imagination,” Phil says, injecting a tiny bit of snark into his blandest, coolest tone.

Clint takes it and runs with it. “Limited? My imagination? First of all, I can imagine quite a bit,” he says in his best Harrison Ford, with a ‘sweetheart’ thrown on the end for good measure, “and second of all, are you arguing for or against Truth or Dare right now?”

Phil tells the part of his brain that very much wants to know what dares Clint would come up with in this space with just the two of them to fuck off, and says, “Against. Always against. So… twenty questions?” This relies on knowledge, not eyesight, so Phil has a fighting chance. Although, oddly, they’ve never played. Clint’s quiet for a minute, and Phil wonders if he’s stepped in something he didn’t mean to. Given Clint's educational background, it's always possible. “Uh. It involves yes or no—”

“No, I know.” Clint shuffles his position a little, leaning differently, which probably means he’s injured and not saying because damn it, of course, but then he asks, “I’ve known people to play two ways. Both are all yes/no, but one involves stating the category up front.”

“Like, I’m thinking of a historical figure?”

“Yes, like that, but FYI if you think of a historical figure I’m going to just start lobbing famous names at you because I know jack shit about classifying most of them. I mean, “white dude” pretty much sums it up, you know?”

“True. All right, then. You go first?”

Clint leans his head back against the wall. “I’m thinking of a city.”

Phil grins. “Well we’ve already established ‘it’s not Budapest.’ So: is it in the western hemisphere?”

“No.”

“South of the equator?”

“No.”

“Damn it. There are a lot of cities north and east. Okay. In Asia?”

“No.”

“In the mountains?”

“Mmmmnot really. Not, like, on the beach, though.”

“Million people?”

“Exactly? No.”

“You’re a shit. This is the _same question not a separate one_: Do more than a million people reside in this city?”

“Yes!”

“And it _is_ in Europe, I guess I never confirmed. Not North Africa or the Middle East.”

“Yes. Yes, Europe, I mean.”

“East of the Apennines?”

“Yep.”

“South of Ramstein?”

Clint’s quiet for a second, then says, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

Phil narrows his eyes. “Is it fucking Budapest?”

Clint laughs. “Hey, I was not the one who made that starting assumption.”

Phil picks up a pebble the size of a peppercorn and throws it at Clint. “I’m thinking of a fucking animal.”

“Chordate?”

“What?”

“Chordate. Has a spine. As opposed to, say, mollusks or something with an exoskeleton like a scorpion.”

Phil blinks. “Yes, chordate.”

“Mammal?”

“Yes.”

“Usually is. People don’t tend to go for amphibians or reptiles when they think of an ‘animal,’ right?”

“Sure.”

“Anyway. Um. Arboreal?”

Phil is now staring and really wishes he knew if Clint could see him as clearly as he can’t see Clint, because what. the. hell. “Not as such, no.”

“So, something that will hang out in a tree, but isn’t like, a koala or something. Not that a koala is a mammal. Primate?”

“No.”

“If it'll hang out in trees it won’t be a canine, probably, or a mustelid. Maybe a bear, I guess, or like, a goat, but. Feline?”

Phil nods, and then, entirely unable to help himself, says, “Barton, just out of curiosity, who taught you taxonomy?”

“What?”

“Yes, feline, but why do you know about the scientific classification of animals?” 

Clint ducks his head a little, a move Phil almost feels more than he sees it. “Um, I grew up in a circus, boss. There were lions? Hey, is it a lion?”

Phil sees that deflection for exactly what it is, and fuck that. “No. Not a lion, and it wasn’t a criticism. I’m just…I don’t know very many people who would be doing this the way you are.”

“Freak of nature, sir.”

“Clint, no. I know it sounds like I was saying something shitty, but I wasn’t. I like it. I just expected more _bigger than a breadbox_.”

“…What the fuck is a breadbox?”

“Box you keep bread in. Anyway. Yes, feline, no, not a lion.”

“Uh. Bigger than a breadbox?”

“Probably not.”

“How big is a breadbox?”

Phil laughs. “That’s not a yes or no question.”

“You see how my approach was superior.”

“Point. You’d keep like a couple loaves, on the counter. To keep the mice out and such.”

“Okay, so housecat, then.”

“Yes, although it could have been a bobcat. And we are definitely always playing this game. How are you with plants?”

“You know what’s great about plants?” Clint’s head is back up, leaning back against the wall, and he sounds tired. “If you know a little about them, you can eat a lot of them and not poison yourself until dead.”

“So, someone taught you some plant taxonomy, too.”

“The vet had animal books, sometimes'd look up stuff or ask me to, when he had his hands elbows deep in something disgusting. So I read them, and then after that I asked if there were ones for plants. He got me a couple field guides. Et cetera. But, additional FYI, I know about five percent of nothing about minerals unless they’re useful for blowing shit up.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I was assuming. Animal, vegetable, mineral.”

Phil is about to answer when the elevator box jolts again and they’re jostled and he has his gun in his hand before he manages to connect two neurons into any kind of thought. Clint makes a sound that confirms that he’s hurt as he follows the same impulse and nocks an arrow just in case, but Phil’s immediate worry is if they didn’t actually come to the ground before like he thought, they have a problem. It’s always hard to judge speed without external cues, and if they’re not on the ground but rather, suspended a hundred feet in the air or something, a fall would suck. He’s glad when the jolt seems to be settling, not falling.

“Good to know.” There’s another moment of settling, some of which is harrowing before he realizes it’s good news: things are thudding and vibrating and obviously that’s another chunk of the building hitting the ground around them (around, then, not below them). Finally, he reholsters and then shifts his weight, slowly, until he’s hip to hip against Clint along the wall that is slightly elevated. He’s sure now that they’re not actually _on_ the ground, but he’s also confident they’re not high off it, either, and Clint is hurt. “You wanna let me see?”

There’s a pause, evidently while Clint convinces himself to admit to injury (Phil knows what it is; he waits), and then, “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, boss, but it’s dark as fuck in here.”

That’s true; the flashlight rolled away and went out in the shuddering, and there’s no light coming in from wherever the dust is coming from.

“I have a couple of glow sticks in my bag,” Phil says. “Give me a sec to—” Clint grabs his arm. 

“I’m fine. Seriously. Hurts, yes, but not in the _I am bleeding to death_ way, and not in any kind of bone trauma, head injury, disaster will follow kind of way. Just the ow kind. Probably the most help would be to be able to prop the knee, like over a pillow, little bit bent.”

“The one closer to me?”

“Yup.”

“K.” Phil straightens his own legs out and then feels for Clint’s thigh. “Let’s see if up and over mine works. Ready to move it?”

Clint mutters an _uh-huh_ and Phil grips the fabric of his pant leg to help move him, both because the pants will support the leg and because this reduces the odds of whacking something on the way, since Phil knows where his own leg is.

A moment later, Clint’s leg is draped over his, and Clint lets out a juddering breath, which right there says that the hell with his own assessment, there’s probably ligament drama and at least some pretty good sprain. Phil sets his hand flat, gentle, on Clint’s thigh and strokes downward, and mmm-hm, heat. Not the good kind. “You’re definitely visiting medical before you clock out,” he says.

“Boss, a building fell on me. Us, but that includes me. I had no illusions you were going to let me just trot off into the night. Anyway, it feels better like this, so.” 

Phil takes the opportunity and excuse to give Clint’s leg one more little pet, then removes his hand.

Clint sighs. “This is going to be a really long boring rescue wait thing now, isn’t it?”

“I expect so. My contingency plans all focused on ways we might get sidetracked and what we’d do if we ran into Danielson’s goons, but I didn’t consider a massive, repeating explosives malfunction that we survived.” Phil’s about to ask if Clint wants to go for another round of Twenty Questions – probably with harder categories and answers (he’s personally thinking maybe something like, _I'm thinking of a fashion trend_ or _I’m thinking of a secret-menu item_), but Clint speaks first.

“So, do you have contingency plans for dates?”

Phil is momentarily glad for the pitch black now, because he has to gawp for just an instant before he sputters, “Barton?”

Clint, because of course he does, fishes out a lighter and holds it up to look at him. “What? I didn’t ask in Mandarin. You okay?” He seems satisfied with Phil’s appearance, anyway, because he lets up on the lighter, which is good because open flames are usually not a great idea when they’re not totally sure they aren’t sitting in a gas leak or some damn thing.

He says as much, but Clint shrugs against his side. “If there’s a gas leak, we’re probably categorically fucked anyway. They’re probably going to make at least one spark getting our asses out of this. Anyway. Dates. Contingency plans. Do you have them?”

“Why is this—What do. Okay. Why do you ask?”

“Because I? Am boooored. And you? Are heeeere.” He’s whining, but it’s funny, not obnoxious.

“So you thought it would be a good time to ask for dating tips?”

“Hey, I don’t need _tips_, man. I do fine.”

Phil knows he does fine, because paying attention to Barton’s booty call situation is one of his less professional minor hobbies, but he doesn’t say anything about that. “Then… yes, I have them for blind dates, sometimes, depending who did the setting up because if it was Wu it’s at least forty percent likely I will need them, but if you don't need tips then I surmise you were just overwhelmingly curious about my love life?”

“I am allowed to be curious. It’s allowed. It’s fine. No harm.”

And… well _that’s_ interesting, because Phil is 98% sure Clint was planning to be totally cool just now, and that was totally and unequivocally anticool. Huh.

Phil grins, and while Clint probably can’t see it, Phil thinks he might be grinning loudly – he might hear it, or maybe smell it. “You’re _curious_ about my _love life_?”

“Can we stop saying the phrase love life? This isn’t a Hallmark movie.”

“I thought Hallmark made cards.” Phil frowns, but isn’t thrown off the trail of this _very interesting_ conversation.

“Lifetime. Whatever. Also, there is a Hallmark channel and I think they do them too. Anyway. And fine, so I was curious and—”

The elevator settles again, a sharp jolt that makes Clint swear and grab Phil’s sleeve, but when the shaking stops, there is a tiny beam of gray light coming in where the corner of the structure has …maybe lost screws? Phil doesn’t think it’s an actual structural fault so much as that there was something punched through for mechanical reasons which has snapped and popped free. It’s a small hole.

Clint huffs a little, relaxes in an obviously-on-purpose way, and finishes, “curious and prying into something that’s none of my business.” Phil can just see him bringing his hands together, picking at a nail maybe.

He feels Clint’s leg thrown over his. It’s not a remotely sexual case of leg-touching, but it’s physical, comfortable, and familiar, and before he thinks about it too hard he says, “It could be.”

“Could be what?” Clint’s tone is very casual, the cool he was shooting for before, but it’s too late to sell that story.

“It could be your business. Whom I date.” Phil swallows once, resists the urge to do it again. “Assuming. If for instance you wanted to be in that picture. If you wanted to date me. Assuming that, then it would be your business. Because—”

“Was that a question, sir? That sounded like a statement about assumptions. I always figured if you were going to ask me out, it would be in the form of a question, more. There would be a question involved, anyway.”

Phil pauses, swallows again while Clint is speaking, and then puts on his absolute driest voice, the one he uses when known criminals who are definitely guilty try to bullshit him and he wants to make it clear to them that he is in fact five thousand percent all over their game. “Are you done critiquing my love-life-adjacent actions?”

“See? Like that! That was a question.”

“I’m aware.”

“But did you die, though?”

“Not yet, although it’s looking bad for you.”

“All ya gotta do is just ask, boss. It goes like this. ‘Do you want to go out on Friday? I’ll pick you up at eight and show you the best Korean food in New York.’ Like that.”

Phil sighs. “You’re supposed to be in Austria on Friday. Unless whatever the fuck is wrong with your knee keeps you home in which case you’re supposed to be on crutches on Friday and the best Korean in New York is not exactly a ten on the accessibility scale.”

“Fine. Tuesday. Next Thursday. A week from tomorrow. Whatever. And it was an _example,_ obviously. I still do not hear you asking.”

“Do you? Want to go out?” There’s another epic shake and this time the metal structure does shear apart somewhat at the top, letting in an actual ray of actual light that is bright enough an ordinary person might be able to locate the eye chart if it were on the near wall. Clint tenses again, so Phil adds, “Or we could stay in.”

The aftershock in the floor is worth it just to see Clint go unfocused and distracted. 

“So, yes?”

“I don’t really think I would have given you asking-me-out advice if I hated the concept,” Clint finally says. “Also, if we stay in, I need you to understand that crutches would be a little inconvenient, but as noted previously, I can imagine quite a bit.” He grips Phil’s thigh just above where his injured knee is crossing over it and squeezes. “And I may have already started.”

Phil smirks. “Nick says you’re the most creative motherfucker he’s ever seen when it comes to certain kinds of operations.”

“What about you?”

“Pshh. I’m the _dirty-tricksingest_ motherfucker.”

“Ooh. Lethal combin—” Clint stops sharply just as Phil’s earpiece crackles; he assumes for the same reason.

“Oh, by the way. We’re digging you out.” Natasha’s voice comes through their earpieces, static-laden but understandable. “Just so you know, we’re picking up your comm signals now.”

Clint closes his eyes, but says, “Thanks. You’ve got pretty great timing, you know. But you missed the discussion of chordate versus arthropod taxonomy.”

There’s a pause, and then she says, “Well, if you’d prefer, we can call a halt until you’re done arranging which sex acts, exactly, you hope to perform on one leg. I’m going to assume scorpions and the like were a completely different conversation and believe me when I tell you I will rebury you myself if you tell me otherwise.”

Phil pets Clint’s thigh, tense again and obviously, based on his expression, hurting him, and says, “Nope, separate. I definitely do not allow scorpions in my bed.”

“Except me,” she says.

Clint arches a brow, but says nothing, and Phil grumbles. “Agent Romanov, please stop insinuating things that upset your injured friend Clint, here.”

“I’m _fine_,” Clint yells. “Boss, don’t worry my lethal friend Natasha, please.”

“Is he going to call you _boss_ on your date?” Natasha asks. “Also, Sitwell says Korean is too messy for a first date anyway, and suggests Italian.”

Clint and Phil both say “Garlic breath;” Clint follows immediately with, “Jinx! Plus, you know Coulson won’t eat New York pizza.”

Phil nods. This is true.

And then Clint leans in and kisses him on the mouth. 

“What.” He says quietly. “What was—”

“I mean, there was a jinx, sir. How were you going to tell Nat to keep digging if I didn’t release you?”

“That’s the kind of release you’re offering?” Phil forgets Natasha is listening and pulls Clint in, kissing him harder and until they’re both breathless.

Distantly, he hears Natasha threaten again to hold off on further digging until they reassure her they will not be, in her words, checking out whether Clint’s flexibility or Phil’s stamina give out first when they arrive.

Phil huffs a laugh (and files away the question because actually, that is a worthwhile game, definitely better than I Spy _or_ Twenty Questions), and says, “Agents, continue. We’ll wait for extraction and reconvene later.”

Clint, who is still all up in his face, silently bites his earlobe and taps out on his belly, in Morse code because why not, _your place or mine?_

**Author's Note:**

> My family drove all over the US when I was a little kid. Family vacations that involved national parks 850 miles from home, that sort of thing. My dad, who doesn't believe in talking to kids like they can't understand things, always played 20 questions while he was driving, and for real, I had a pretty decent casual working knowledge of animal taxonomy by the time I was in kindergarten. I was very surprised to learn other children did not know animals came in families. Anyway, it seemed like the kind of data a kid hanging around a vet might just acquire by osmosis, even lacking in just about all formal education, so.


End file.
